On the Art of Programming
I was reading the web this morning and ran across this post by Guy English, and it perfectly expresses my beliefs on the subject of coding:
Programming is an exercise in overcoming how wrong you’ve been in the past. At first you’ll overcome the syntax errors, then you’ll overcome the structural errors, and then you’ll come to align your code with the standards of a greater community and you’ll feel safe and like you’ve made it. You haven’t – you’re still wrong because you’re always wrong. You are playing a game you cannot win. And let’s face it – if it was a game you could win you’d not be playing at all.
I read that, and it's exactly what I feel. There's always a better way to do it. But the beauty of it is that you can always make it better. Spend the hour and make that method better. Spend the day and refactor that mess and make it clean. You can do it. Always.